Beyond Furina's performance, which could only be described as a "dimensional strike," Wang Yan's interest in the trio of Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong, and Xiao Xiao was growing increasingly intense.
This team was undoubtedly one of the top elite squads in this year's New Student Assessment.
They possessed a luxurious lineup consisting of one Three-Ring Soul Venerable and two Two-Ring Great Soul Masters, and both Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong's spirit ring configurations appeared extremely unique.
While Wang Dong's over-standard ratio of one yellow and one purple was already astonishing, Huo Yuhao's spirit rings were even more baffling: one white, one purple, one black.
That glaring white ten-year spirit ring, sandwiched between the latter two high-age spirit rings, looked completely out of place.
As a teacher with a solid foundation in theoretical knowledge, Wang Yan's intuition clashed with his academic learning.
His intuition told him that Huo Yuhao's white spirit ring was by no means simple and must have some hidden mystery; yet, all known Spirit Master theories emphasized that ten-year spirit rings were the bottom tier of the spirit ring system, possessing weak energy and limited effects, and nowadays, any Spirit Master with even the slightest resources would not choose to absorb one.
Could it be that Huo Yuhao came from an extremely impoverished background, forced to absorb a ten-year spirit ring due to a lack of resources during his initial stages, thereby hindering his early talent?
But how could that explain his subsequent ability to obtain thousand-year, or even ten-thousand-year spirit rings?
The gap and contradiction in this were truly difficult to explain with conventional logic.
What puzzled Wang Yan even more was Huo Yuhao's performance in the matches.
Over the course of five matches, he had only used that First Soul Skill; the other two high-age spirit rings had never lit up.
Although his Martial Soul, "Spirit Eyes," was a Body Martial Soul, it possessed almost no external characteristics when activated.
For the vast majority of the time, Huo Yuhao would simply stand quietly at the edge of the arena, while Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao defeated their opponents with overwhelming momentum, often leaving them unable to even touch the hem of their clothes.
Huo Yuhao was like a commander orchestrating operations from behind the scenes; without needing to take action personally, a single thought was enough to seal the victory.
But the problem was, Wang Yan had never heard Huo Yuhao issue any verbal commands during the battles (aside from the customary greetings before the match).
How exactly did he communicate with his teammates, and how did he precisely control the entire situation?
Furina and Huo Yuhao—the fog shrouding these two students made Wang Yan, who was passionate about researching Spirit Master theory and discovering talent, itch with curiosity.
During the breaks between matches, he pieced together some information from the sporadic gossip of other teachers: Furina was indeed the Pope of the emerging "Axis Cult," absurdly young, and had once caused Teacher Zhou Yi to suffer a setback in class, damaging her prestige.
However, the specific effects of her first four Spirit Abilitys, as well as the origin of those over-spec spirit rings, remained a mystery.
As for Huo Yuhao, his Body Martial Soul, Spirit Eyes, had been confirmed, and his First Soul Skill was rumored to be a powerful auxiliary skill related to foresight or insight.
He had a close relationship with Furina and was regarded as a core member of the Axis Cult, almost like Furina's most loyal follower.
Wang Yan couldn't help but feel some regret; when Furina gave that impromptu lecture, he had been busy with other matters and missed the chance to observe it on the spot.
Otherwise, he might have grasped the unique traits of these "little monsters" sooner.
But he was not discouraged, believing that as the competition deepened and stronger opponents appeared, it would inevitably force them to reveal more of their trump cards and secrets.
Soon, the second day of the assessment arrived.
Counting the opening match on the afternoon of the first day, and two matches each in the morning and afternoon of the second day, there was a total of five high-intensity duels.
The tactics of Huo Yuhao's team remained almost unchanged from beginning to end.
Even when facing a strong team that also possessed three Two-Ring Great Soul Masters, they still ended the battle rapidly with an almost unreasonable, crushing momentum, completing a "one-shot kill."
The situation on Furina's side was slightly different.
The opponents encountered subsequently were generally weaker than Jiang Xueqing's team from the first match, usually a combination of one Two-Ring and two One-Ring Spirit Masters.
Due to the dense schedule on the second day, which required continuous combat, many teams, after drawing Furina, weighed the pros and cons and simply chose to concede, skipping the attempt to even step onto the arena.
In their view, engaging in combat with a food system Spirit King who possessed a Soul Power Rank as high as fifty-two and monstrous spirit ring configurations was purely a waste of Soul Power and energy.
Furthermore, there was a high probability of sustaining injuries that would affect subsequent matches, so it was better to preserve their strength and focus fully on the next match.
This left Furina feeling quite helpless, and even a bit of the loneliness of being "too high up to withstand the cold."
The "little theater" in her heart had already started playing the BGM of "How lonely it is to be invincible," or she wanted to imitate a certain male lead and say: "When enemies see me, they either flee in terror or suffer a crushing defeat."
Although she knew that the ending of that protagonist's story was often about getting beaten up or being on the way to getting beaten up, it was quite fitting to use it to decorate her current state of mind of being "invincible and seeking defeat."
Looking back at all the matches, the secret of Huo Yuhao's Spirit Ability, which Wang Yan most wanted to clarify, remained shrouded in fog.
From beginning to end, Huo Yuhao only used his First Soul Skill, and its method of operation was extremely secretive.
This seemed to corroborate the speculation of other teachers—that it was likely an extremely powerful battlefield perception or predictive auxiliary skill, allowing him to control the entire situation with a near "God's eye view" and command with ease.
In comparison, the Spirit Abilitys of Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao were fully revealed during the battles, and Wang Yan had basically grasped their ability characteristics and combat styles.
Among this year's new students, besides Huo Yuhao's team, there were three other teams possessing Three-Ring Spirit Masters, and they had also achieved a record of five wins and zero losses.
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